Trouble-making U.S. soldiers in Japan? Are they crazy?

What to do about those American soldiers stationed at U.S. military bases in Japan who rape or annoy or sometimes even kill the locals, much to their Japanese hosts’ consternation? How about trying to figure out what’s going on in their heads?

Roughly 50,000 U.S. troop are now based in Japan; the broader, American military-related population there totals some 96,000 people. Discontent about the presence of the foreign troops on Japanese soil has been exacerbated by the recent news that Olatunbosun Ugbogu, a 22-year-old Nigerian national serving in the U.S. Navy in Japan, has been charged by Japanese prosecutors in the murder of a taxi driver in March of this year. “Japanese anger over the U.S. military presence [also] has grown…following an alleged rape in February of a 14-year-old girl by a U.S. Marine on Okinawa” in the far south of Japan, where more than half of all the U.S. troops in the country are stationed. Okinawa-based U.S. Marine Sergeant Tyrone Hadnott now faces a court-martial “on charges of kidnapping and raping” the adolescent girl. (Reuters; S.F. Gate “World Views,” Apr. 25, 2008)

In Japan, earlier this month, U.S. military officials escorted Olatunbosun Ugbogu (center), a Nigerian serving in the U.S. Navy there; the sailor has been charged by Japanese prosecutors in the murder of a taxi driver in March

In the face of such image-harming news as this, next month the U.S. Navy “will start conducting a survey on the mental state of about 20,000 of its military and civilian personnel in Japan following a spate of crimes….It will be the first such background check by the U.S. military in Japan….The survey is part of the soldier-management program that has been implemented by the U.S. military to prevent crime and is aimed at identifying those who misbehave or have violent personality traits….[Anyone who is] perceived to have a problem will be obliged to undergo counseling and other special-education programs. Should no improvement be made, [such a] person will be transferred [back] to the U.S.” (Kyodo in the Japan Times)

Over in South Korea, where some 27,000 U.S. troops are stationed, the Korea Times reports that Washington “is likely to accept a request” by U.S. Army General Burwell Baxter Bell III, the American forces’ top commander there, “to extend the length of tours [of duty] by U.S. troops [in South Korea] and have their families accompany them” while they are stationed in the East Asian country. The Korea Times notes that the government of South Korea “welcomes” the idea of extended tours of duty by U.S. soldiers, “while some critics are worried that the family-accompanied program, along with a plan to pause the reduction of U.S. troops, would burden South Korean taxpayers.” These topics will be on the agenda when U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visits Seoul in June.

At the beginning of March, U.S. Marines and South Korean soldiers conducted a joint military drill at the U.S. Army’s Rodriguez range in Pocheon, about 43 miles northeast of Seoul

“Currently, most U.S. troops [stationed in South Korea] are required to serve one-year tours without their families,” the Korea Times reports. By contrast, it adds, at U.S. military installations in Europe and Japan, “about 75 percent of U.S. troops are accompanied by their families. Bell has reportedly formally recommended that the Pentagon extend tour lengths in South Korea to fall in line with those in Europe and Japan and to reflect South Korea’s vast transformation from ‘a war-ravaged country to a modern, first-world country.'” Earlier this year, Bell was quoted by the U.S. military newspaper, the Stars and Stripes, as saying: “It is unacceptable in the U.S. military today to have this kind of policy in place and in any way condone it.” (Cited by the Korea Times)

The U.S. government “is expected to ask South Korea to pay more for the presence of its troops and their families during forthcoming defense cost-sharing talks….” South Korea “currently pays about $751 million…, or 43 percent[,] of costs related to the [U.S. Forces Korea] presence, while the United States has called on Seoul to pay more to reach the 50-50 level.” (Korea Times)

South Korea, March 6, 2008: Anti-U.S. and anti-war protesters took part in a rally denouncing a joint military exercise involving American and South Korean troops

A separate Korea Times news article published earlier this month reported that the recently disclosed results of an opinion poll of first-year army cadets at the Korea Military Academy (KMA) in Seoul (data that had not been made known during the administration of former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who left office in February) showed that 34 percent of respondents had named the United States as their country’s main enemy. A former superintendent of the military academy, commenting on the survey’s findings (that apparently were a few years old), noted that, by contrast, 33 percent of the cadets who had responded to the poll had named North Korea as South Korea’s main enemy. The former military-academy official described the survey’s results as “unbelievable, stressing [that] the respondents were those who were supposed to be[come] military officers.” Meanwhile, the Korea Times article noted, the communist government of North Korea has not issued any official “document or official commentaries” that “describe South Korea as the main enemy” of Kim Jong-il’s regime. Instead, North Korea has “reportedly defined the U.S. [as] a ‘mortal enemy’ and Japan [as] a ‘longstanding enemy.'”